


Before/After/Before

by TrisB



Category: Star Trek (2009)
Genre: Community: where_no_woman, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:58:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 474
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18891
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TrisB/pseuds/TrisB
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jocelyn has never been shy with a snappy comeback, but this is one situation she's got no good response for.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Before/After/Before

**Author's Note:**

> For the prompt "before."

Joanna doesn't talk to her for almost a full day, which is damn impressive for an eight-year-old. When she finally deigns to express her opinion in words, "I hate you" is a unifying motif. Jocelyn has never been shy with a snappy comeback, but this is one situation she's got no good response for. Hate you too, kid. Go brush your teeth.

Leonard finally fucking vidphones a day and a half after he was due to arrive in San Francisco, giving no excuse for the delay other than the day and a half of extra stubble and the signs of a depressive bender Jocelyn learned to identify from ten paces during the days leading up to the divorce. She basks in righteous smugness until Joanna actually bursts into tears of goddamn joy at the sight of her unwashed father, but that conversation ends with "I hate you!" too, so when Joanna runs shrieking from the screen and Jocelyn has to hang up on him herself, she doesn't even feel the need to back up Jo on that particular point; she just smiles magnanimously at his horror-struck image as it winks out. She finds Joanna hiding below her bed with the cat, one skinny elbow sticking out.

"Jo," Jocelyn says, laying down on top of the covers, her feet danging over the side. "You shouldn't say things like that to your father. It's disrespectful and unladylike."

"I hate you."

"You shouldn't say things like that to me, either. I might read to you every night and cook broccoli at every meal."

Joanna rolls out to exposed carpet, scandalized. "I want to read to myself, Mom. You never pronounce stuff right." The opportunity to use one of her favorite words has cheered her up considerably. "_Chapter_ books."

"You can't stop me," Jocelyn threatens solemnly. "I'll do the voices and everything."

"Noooo! Only Dad can do the voices." Joanna's face is scrunched up the way that used to make Leonard tease her they got her half-off from a Bajoran baby sale. Joanna was unaccountably fond of this origin story, like a lot of things where her father was concerned. "When is he coming back, Mom?"

"He's not, sweetie." Jocelyn smooths out Jo's wrinkled nose. "He lives in California now. We can't go back to before it happened. I'm sorry."

"I want to. I hate after." Joanna rolls back beneath the bed in disgust.

It isn't 'I hate you,' and Jocelyn will take it. "This is before too, hon. Before we start to feel okay. We will, though." The under-bed silence contemplates this. "So what should I read tonight? You like that picture book with bears, right? Or maybe the rat?"

"_Noooooooooooooooooooooo!_" cries the monster under the bed, before hurtling up to clamber over her mother's back, _The Trumpet of the Swan_ like an amulet in her hand.


End file.
